Synopses & Reviews
An urgent and moving exploration of the Alzheimers epidemic,
The Forgetting is a dazzling meditation on the nature of memory and self and on the disease that robs people of both.
Alzheimers disease is a demographic time bomb. Since 1975, the number of Americans afflicted has risen from five hundred thousand to five million; over the next fifty years, an estimated eighty to one hundred million more people worldwide will succumb to it. But it is the story behind these numbers that makes The Forgetting such a landmark work. A magnificent synthesis of history, science, politics, psychology ,and profound human drama, the book explores the nature of a disease that attacks not merely memory but the very core of our human identity.
Delving into such diverse areas as art history, literature, genetics, and neurobiology, David Shenk shows that Alzheimers particular terror, the gradual eradication of memory and of mind is as old as humankind itself. He convincingly posits that such historical figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jonathan Swift and Frederick Law Olmstead were caught in the diseases insidious grip. Moving portraits of contemporary patients, their families, and their caregivers drive home the sad pattern of regression Alzheimers exacts, a pathology that eerily mirrors child development in reverse. Yet Shenk offers a well of empathy and understanding for families striving to better understand and come to terms with their loss.
With equal mastery Shenk charts the complicated race to find a cure. As scientists pursue a treatment worth billions of dollars, the brutal competition among them poses a serious threat to the traditional ethic of sharing vital research. But there are heartening signs of progress, and for the first time there is excitement among scientists that a cure may indeed be possible.
Shenk eloquently calls Alzheimers death by a thousand subtractions. The Forgetting is at once a powerful examination of what this means and a forthright discussion of the impact this epidemic will have on the life of every reader.
Review
"Like most laymen, Shenk believes that the dramatic progress in our understanding of Alzheimer's means that a good treatment is on the horizon, but no dramatic breakthrough seems imminent....The subject may be depressing, but it's also important, and the author holds the reader's interest to the end." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
David Shenk is the author of Data Smog, which The New York Times hailed as an indispensable guide to the big picture of technologys cultural impact. A former fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University, he has written for Harpers, Wired, Salon, The New Republic, the Washington Post, and The New Yorker and is an occasional commentator for NPRs All Things Considered. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.
Reading Group Guide
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Riveting. . . . Superb. . . . A must-read for anyone interested in the wretched ailment that is Alzheimer's Disease." —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
The introduction, discussion questions, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of David Shenk's The Forgetting—an engaging account of the disease that afflicts nearly half of all persons over the age of eighty-five, robbing its victims and devastating their loved ones.
1. What is the difference between a healthy brain and a sick one?
2. What comparisons might be made between early childhood development and Alzheimer’s?
3. By what processes—historic, scientific, semantic, cultural—have certain forms of dementia come to be known as Alzheimer’s?
4. By holding the story of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s mental decline in a light cast by the story of the molecular biology community’s efforts to combat Alzheimer’s, Shenk’s prologue illustrates the principal juxtaposition that frames The Forgetting. And by including in that prologue not only an excerpt from Emerson’s poem “Brahma” but a reference to the Barbara Walters/Monica Lewinsky interview that coincided with the keynote address of the Molecular Mechanisms in Alzheimer’s Disease conference, Shenk prepares his reader for the broad scope of the rest of his book, a book as likely to quote from Plato or Shakespeare as to refer to The New England Journal of Medicine and gaze at William de Kooning’s paintings. Why do you suppose Shenk elected to work with such a broad canvas?
5. Plato "insisted that those suffering from 'the influence of extreme old age' should be excused from the commission of the crimes of sacrilege, treachery, and treason." Keeping in mind that Plato was talking about people suffering the influence of old age, but keeping in mind as well that the onset of Alzheimer's is gradual and often undiagnosed, do you feel that old age alone should be a mitigating factor in any other crimes? Would you take this a step further and argue that society should make a legal distinction for elderly people, jut as it does for juveniles?
6. "We are the sum of our memories. Everything we know, everything we perceive, every movement we make is shaped by them." Despite the truth of Shenk's statement, most people go through their daily lives entirely unmindful, if not unaware, of the role played by memory in their behavior. Try to articulate the ways in which your memories have made you what and who you are.
7. Short of medical treatment, what options would you like to see available for people who learn that they have early Alzheimer's? How would you plan for your future and the future of you family if you were to become one of those people?
8. Shenk writes of Alzheimer's patients and their families struggling to create meaning out of their loss. Do you think that such meaning exists? Do you, too, desire to find meaning in suffering?
9. Should the government continue to allow Alzheimer's patients to give away all assets to their children in order to qualify for government-sponsored care?
10. Nonfiction books can be as suspenseful as novels. Discuss the ways in which Shenk achieves suspense in The Forgetting.
11. Are you encouraged or discouraged by the advances that have been made in our understanding of Alzheimer's over the past century?
12. Many of us are caregivers to Alzheimer's patients. Discuss Shenk's proposal that "the caregiver's challenge is to escape the medical confines of disease and to assemble a new humanity."